CRACKING DOWN ON COCA PLANTS

Even while the country gears up excitedly for war on terror and weapons of
mass destruction, we are also engaged in a war on drugs, a war we have been
waging since the 1980s.

While this war has had significant ramifications even within our country,
the fallout of this war has been more evident in South America.

In Bolivia lately, poor coca farmers, as well as advocates for other social
causes, led by Evo Morales, are blockading roads in protest of eradication
efforts of the government, which is acting under what is referred to as "Law
1008." This draconian law - passed a little over a decade ago with U.S.
pressure - allows the government to arrest on the basis of suspicion alone,
and forces those accused to prove themselves innocent (that is, they are
guilty until proven otherwise).

The case in Bolivia is one of indirect U.S. pressure. Our president has,
under his authority, the right to blacklist countries that either grow
source crops for drugs or traffic drugs. Once a country is blacklisted,
however, it can avoid the corresponding economic restrictions we would be
required to apply if the president feels they have taken adequate steps to
cut down on problematic activities. Whether a country's efforts are
"adequate" is left to the president's discretion.

This creates a situation where governments such as Bolivia, which is a major
coca producer, are pressured to keep bad laws and to infringe upon human
rights. When reformers started to suggest changes to Law 1008, which might
protect the rights of the accused (who are often convicted with coerced
confessions), the U.S. sent a representative to warn that changing the law
might undermine anti-drug efforts, thus implying that Bolivia might lose its
economic preferences. The law has not been changed, and farmers continue to
protest.

In Colombia, U.S. military support is being sent to expand herbicide
fumigations of coca plantations, which is affecting not only the ecology of
the area and non-coca crops (since some coca growers are poor farmers who
also grow subsistence crops), but also the health of the people, who have
been reporting unusual bouts of headaches and nausea.

While the Colombian government is embroiled in a chaotic and often vicious
civil war, we are giving them military aid designed to help fund fumigations
of coca crops. We have completely disregarded the potentially toxic effects
of the herbicide, which the United States refers to as glyphosate.

Glyphosate itself has been showed to be largely nontoxic, but what we are
actually spraying is Roundup, which is glyphosate plus ingredients that
increase its toxicity. The fact that Roundup is produced by Monsanto, a
large biotechnology company that's recently been in the news for its
genetically modified seed, doesn't make things any easier to accept.

As an "improvement" upon the chemical herbicides, the United States has
recently been reconsidering the use of mycoherbicides, that is, herbicides
that consist of fungus designed to target coca specifically. The potential
effects on the environment and on human health of such herbicides are not
fully known.

While the United States insists its mycoherbicides are perfectly safe,
studies have been suggesting otherwise, that the fungus mutates quickly and
may begin to attack plants other than coca, and may cause disease in people
with weak immune systems. Trials in Florida were recently canceled for fear
of these potential adverse effects; What makes us think Colombia is any
better a testing ground?

Moreover, it's been suggested that sending such mycoherbicides to Colombia
would violate a treaty the United States has signed designed to stop the
proliferation of bioweapons.

The campaign in the Andes hasn't even been shown to be effective. While it
has cut production of coca in Peru significantly, coca production has simply
moved over borders, to Bolivia and Colombia, and it threatens to move from
those countries into Ecuador.

The thinking behind these eradication efforts, at least from the U.S.
perspective, is to decrease the available supply of illicit drugs so that
prices for the drugs will increase, thus making it more difficult for people
here to buy the drugs. Ironically, increasing prices on drugs only
encourages potential growers and dealers to pursue potentially higher
profits by expanding their ventures or moving them.

So what we have is a national policy on drugs, which helps to poison and
oppress people in other countries, a policy which doesn't even do what it
was intended to do. And what's the motivation behind the policy in the first
place? Do we really need a drug-free America?

If we are really serious about cutting down on the negative effects of drug
use in this country, we should legalize and regulate these substances. This
would, in essence, put the production of drugs in a competitive market,
making them less expensive and thus, less useful in fueling gangs and
terrorist groups.

It would also remove an increasing pressure on our penal system, which is
filled more and more with drug offenders, often from the poorer levels of
our society.

We need to bring this black market into the light if we want to do something
meaningful and substantial in the "war on drugs." This war needs to end.